If it hasn’t been going bad enough for the French World Cup squad, now major corporations are spending valuable advertising francs on slamming their dreadful performance and inept efforts at becoming a team during the World Cup. Sony took out a full-page Playstation ad mocking their failings which featured a cock with his head blown off with the words “GAME OVER” directly beneath the mutilated bird.

There is certainly no need to go into details over everything that went wrong for the French in South Africa – most of you have undoubtedly heard at least some of the epic fails the team was involved in – from a confrontation between a player and the coach during halftime of a match, to the team refusing to practice to the coach benching the captain and other starters for a must-win game; wherever the French went, a veritable shitstorm was sure to follow.

Oh, to take delight in the misery of others – quite the treat, isn’t it? – which is why the above Sony ad is so wonderfully delightful in its subtle deviousness. Via an AFP report:

The video game console ad did not make specific reference to the team, but the cock is a clear reference to an unofficial symbol of France which features on French footballers’ jerseys.

The headless bird was a photo-montage and “no animal was killed,” noted the small print at the bottom of the ad on the back page of Liberation newspaper. Sony was not immediately available for comment on the ad.

Awesome. Well played, Sony. Well played, indeed. Although I have no idea how a cock without its head does in any way promote any Playstation product, unless Sony is coming out with some sort of Lorena Bobbitt First-person severer game I haven’t heard about yet.